Too Much: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (All or Nothing)

by Lea Griffith

  Copeland steepled his fingers in front him. “Do tell,” he ordered.

  David stood and began pacing. Copeland watched him for a time and then motioned to Toby, who left the room quietly.

  “What the fuck is going on, David?” Copeland asked in a hard, mean voice. Rage moved under the surface of his skin. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told David he could smell his fear. It was a sour stench in his nostrils.

  “Someone knows what you did to DeLeon,” David said in a hushed voice.

  Copeland chuckled even though his scalp tightened. “Really? What did I do to DeLeon?”

  “You killed him, J.C. And somebody has the pictures to prove it.”

  Copeland stood at that and walked to the window that overlooked the crystal-blue water beyond. “I didn’t kill Juan DeLeon. Whatever pictures you have are a lie.”

  “I’ve seen them, Jeremiah. It’s definitely you standing over a very dead DeLeon,” David said, and a note of fear had crept into his voice now.

  Copeland shrugged. He’d done something horrible that night, but it hadn’t been killing DeLeon. “And that’s why you sent your ring to me through Daly?”

  His voice went hard at the mention of his woman. There was nothing to be done for it. David had involved Daly, and that was unacceptable.

  “No, I sent her the ring because someone is leveraging me to get to you. They know, Jeremiah, and I’m scared. They’ve threatened Daly, too,” he said and then squeaked.

  Copeland was in his face that quickly. “What the fuck do you mean they’ve threatened Daly?”

  David took a step back, eyes wide, breathing shallow. “I mean, they threatened you!”

  Copeland shook his head and advanced the step his brother had taken backward. “You just said ‘Daly.’ You said they’d threatened Daly, David. Who is it and what have they said?”

  The rage was volcanic now, bubbling and threatening to explode on the first available person. The door opened to the library and Toby walked over to them. “She’s fine, but I had to call her. Hoenig didn’t answer,” Toby said.

  The only thing that could have tamped Copeland’s rage kicked him in the chest—fear. Hoenig was top-notch. He’d relieved Craft at dawn as Copeland had been leaving to venture an hour and a half north and wait for David. If Hoenig wasn’t answering, something was wrong.

  “Get down there. Tell her to go to The Underground and wait for us there,” Copeland told Toby, then turned to his brother. “Who is it?”

  David shook his head and held up a hand. “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. They call and threaten. They sent me the pictures and then they told me to send my ring to you or she’d pay the price. They also said if I told you, they’d make her pay.”

  “You’re leaving shit out, brother. Tell me all of it now!” Copeland heard Toby murmuring into his phone and then cursing roundly. In the midst of mind-numbing fear for the safety of his woman, he found a smile.

  She’d told her brother to fuck off.

  “She told me to fuck off,” Toby said in exasperation.

  Copeland squelched his smile and turned a hard glare back to David. “Now,” he said succinctly.

  “I don’t know who it is, Jeremiah. But I believe them. They want you and they’re willing to use whoever they can to get whatever it is they want accomplished.”

  “Have they threatened Ruthie?”

  Toby stilled, and Copeland felt the other man’s growing rage blanket the air.

  David shook his head. “Only me and Daly.” David sounded miserable. Copeland didn’t care.

  “I went through your financials and your caseload, David. It’s the only thing saving your ass right now. You said you’re being blackmailed and I believe it. If the State of Georgia even got a whiff that I’m under suspicion of murder, they’d pull your ass out of that position so fast you’d have whiplash. Whoever is doing this is using you as a pawn, and because of that, you’re going to play along. I’ll be monitoring your calls. If they contact you, you contact me immediately. I’ll tell you what to say and how to say it. Are we motherfucking clear, David?”

  David nodded and breathed deeply. “I don’t want her hurt, J.C. She’s been hurt enough by you.”

  Every muscle in Copeland’s body tensed. He wanted to strike his brother but breathed through the urge. How fucking dare the man who’d cost him Daly say anything about her being hurt by him? How fucking dare he?

  “Remember what I said, David. You come to me the minute they contact you. I’ll be tracing all your incoming and outgoing.” Copeland held up a hand. “Before you fucking talk to me about client privilege, let me remind you that it’s because of you I lost her the first time. I won’t lose her again because you fucked up. I’ll keep your secrets, but you’d better damn well believe I’ll let you pay if it costs me Daly.”

  David started to say something. Copeland shook his head and said, “Leave.”

  “I need protection,” David said plaintively.

  “You already have it.” David turned away and Copeland said, “I want those pictures in my hand by tonight. Don’t disappoint me, David. Please.”

  His brother nodded and left.

  “We need to leave now,” Toby said, and in his voice was the worry Copeland would not give in to.

  He watched David leave and then followed Toby to the car. “Whatever it takes, I want her safe. I’ve got to find out what pictures David is talking about. Whoever this is knows something about that night, Toby, and I need to know both what and who it is.”

  Toby grunted. “We’ll find out. Let’s get back to Atlanta.”

  Chapter 19

  Daly’s screeching house alarm woke her from a dead sleep. She grabbed her Glock out of the nightstand drawer and threw off the covers, stepping into the hallway while sweeping her gun back and forth. She cleared her hall and two bedrooms and had just stepped into the living room when a strong arm locked around her stomach, pulling her into a hard body.

  She slammed her head back, hitting the man in the face, and was released immediately. She turned and had the gun trained on—

  “Jeremiah?” Shock ghosted through her and she lowered the gun.

  Jeremiah glanced at her sheepishly as he tested his nose. “You changed the locks and the alarm code?”

  Relief made her weak. His tone had her smiling in spite of the fear. “Yeah. Guess I showed you, huh?”

  He growled and lowered his hand, looking no worse for wear. He crossed his arms over his chest and just stood there.

  She melted. Daly snorted at her emotional response to him and he cocked his head. “I’m so easy,” she muttered. She stepped to the alarm panel and turned it off. The phone rang and she answered the security company’s questions, denying she needed any assistance.

  He took the gun from her and settled it on the nearest table before grabbing her up in his arms and holding her against his body. “That’s better than cheap, right?” he murmured in her ear as he kissed the shell of said ear and let his lips travel south.

  He took her mind so quickly. It was as if she’d never seen those incriminating pictures earlier—

  Fuck.

  She had seen them. And now here he was. In her house once again, stealing her mind with slow strokes of his tongue over her skin.

  “Jeremiah?” She refused to believe he’d killed a man. She’d thought about it the entire evening; had fallen asleep looking for reasonable explanations for those pictures.

  Eventually, she’d given in to her heart and her instincts. She’d also trusted Toby’s. Her brother wouldn’t work for a killer. And he damn sure wouldn’t call a killer his best friend. So yeah, she’d determined that until she had irrefutable proof otherwise, she was going with her gut. Or maybe it was just lust. Maybe she was the easiest woman on earth.

  “What is it, baby?” he asked as he squeezed her to his body.

  “I can’t breathe,” she said with a groan.

  “You’re groaning just fine.”

  “Y
ou’re squeezing them out of me.”

  “I can do more than squeeze them out of you,” he returned as he kissed the top of her head.

  “Yeah?” Her hands dug into the hard muscles of his back, holding him as close as he held her.

  He laughed, and it was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard. “Yeah. I can fuck them out of you.” He licked the column of her throat and when he reached her lips, he lifted her and settled her legs around his hips. “Goddamn, I missed you like hell on fire today, Daly.”

  She rested her forehead on his and said, “I got your note.”

  He smiled and she tried to sink into him. “Be still, woman.”

  “Or what? You gonna squeeze me again?” Daly wanted him. His heat sank into her bones and she melted against him.

  “I’ve already told you I’m going to fuck you.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “You to tell me why you changed the locks and alarm code.”

  She lowered her eyes and wanted to curse. Be a little more obvious, why don’t you, Daly? “I already told you.” Maybe she could distract him. A slow curl of her hips and a lick over his lips and she had him hissing. “And how’d you get past those state-of-the-art locks, anyway?”

  He followed her tongue, wrapping his around it and suckling. Her eyes crossed and her legs tightened before he pulled away slightly. “No you didn’t, Daly.”

  “Didn’t what?” she asked.

  “Tell me why you’d changed the locks and the code.”

  “I didn’t? Well, hell, considering I didn’t talk to you the entire day, I guess I missed that. Bottom line, though? You and Toby and whoever the hell else don’t get to just come into my house whenever the hell you want to,” she said harshly.

  He stilled, lifted his head, and stared at her in the muted light of her living room. “What do you mean ‘whoever the hell else’?”

  Shit. She was not going to tell him about the roses or the pictures. She just wasn’t. She was going to believe in him and trust him. She hadn’t before. By God, she would now. Whatever was going on, he’d take care of her and she’d damn well take care of him too. “If you and Toby can get in, who’s to tell what other vagrants can get in too?”

  He snorted. “Vagrants?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, if you and Toby can get in …” She allowed her statement to trail off, hoping he’d just let it drop.

  “I took your key. We didn’t break in,” he reminded her.

  “You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to,” she said around a laugh of her own. “How’d you get in this time? You haven’t seen me to steal the new key.”

  “Don’t you know when I’ve got thieving on my mind I can do anything …” he answered at her lips.

  “Very resourceful. But I’ve got something you don’t have to steal, Jeremiah.”

  He chuckled, then smacked her ass, and then she was the one hissing. Copeland didn’t ease the sting and her hips moved from side to side, rubbing her clit against the length of him. She shivered. Fear had long since drained away, leaving her an emotional time bomb. As usual, when she was with Jeremiah, everything else faded but her need for him.

  “You always get out of bed with a Glock?” he asked against her lips.

  She tasted his breath and her lips curved. “When my security alarm gets me up, I do.”

  His eyes fairly glowed. He was hard but holding back for her. “You’re smiling.”

  She affected shock. “No!”

  He swatted her again and it startled a groan out of her. “Ah, so another thing that wrings groans from that beautiful throat. So let’s see, squeezing, fucking, and spanking do the trick.”

  She nodded and rubbed herself over him again. “I have a mighty need, Jeremiah. I’ve been without you for oh, let’s see, about eighteen hours. I think you should make those missed hours up to me,” she whispered and suckled his bottom lip into her mouth, nibbling on the fullness and running her tongue along it to ease any sting.

  “I should, huh?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said solemnly.

  “How?”

  “Wall sex.”

  It was his turn to affect shock. “I can’t believe you’d let me fuck you against a wall, Ms. Edwards.”

  His hips pushed up and she laughed huskily. “It’s the truth, Jeremiah Copeland—I’d probably let you fuck me just about anywhere.”

  He groaned and his hands clenched on her ass. “You aren’t wearing panties, Ms. Edwards. You’re making it very easy for me.”

  She reached between them, secure that he held her and wouldn’t let her fall. Her back met the wall and she worked his belt and pants loose, freeing him, and delighting when his cheeks went ruddy. Daly stroked him and moaned. “I thought we’d established how easy I was.”

  His hands pulled her ass cheeks apart and the cold air against her warm flesh had her body going molten. Then his fingers played along her pussy and she hissed in a breath. His lips were right at hers, so close but not touching. “Easy but not cheap, right?”

  She smiled and pulled her head back. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were delaying. Are you afraid of a little wall sex with me?”

  He pulled her flesh apart again and then his cock was there. She closed her eyes and concentrated as its broad head nudged her pussy open before he sank deep.

  “Oh, baby, it ain’t little. And does that feel like fear?”

  Her hands dug into his shoulders. The cloth of his shirt was between them and she hated it, but the feel of him so deep had her not caring about anything but fulfillment. “No. But to make sure, perhaps you should pull out and sink back in. I’d like to test it out a few times before I make a final decision.”

  He laughed, and it tied her stomach in beautiful, hot knots. But in the end he did as she requested—over and over and over. And by the time he was finished, she’d not only made her final decision, she’d screamed it.

  Jeremiah Copeland wasn’t afraid of anything. Least of all wall sex.

  Chapter 20

  They faced each other in her bed, only inches separating their bodies. Daly traced the delineation of the muscles along Jeremiah’s arm and shoulder. Those muscles twitched under his tawny skin, responding to her touch and making her heart leap. He’d taken her again after their wall sex and she was convinced that every time they came together, it was better than the last.

  “I feel like all I’ve known the last three years is pain. To lie here with you like this is … wonderful,” she whispered into the candlelit darkness of her room.

  “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” His eyes opened and speared her heart.

  “Westley, The Princess Bride.” She wanted to smile but didn’t. There was comfort in the quote game they played, but too much lay in the space between them.

  He grabbed her hand and curled it into his own, pulling it close, then resting it against his heart. “There wasn’t a minute of any day that you weren’t in my thoughts. You knew pain, but for me it was sheer hell. Pain is too mild a word for what I felt.”

  A tear fell from her eye. “Tell me what the last few years have brought you, Jeremiah, besides pain.”

  He searched her face as if trying to memorize every plane and freckle. “I would rather talk about the future,” he said on a heavy sigh.

  She nodded. “But we must reconcile the past before we move into the future.”

  He released her hand and turned on his back, staring at the ceiling. “What do you want from me, Daly? Haven’t you had your pound of flesh?”

  That’s what she’d done by not trusting him. It helped to have all the pieces of a puzzle before you believed the picture but she’d grown up, matured these years without him. She’d hurt this larger-than-life man who had stolen her dreams and given her promises of forever in return. And maybe he hadn’t so much stolen them as she’d left them lying on the ground to follow him. When she’d left him, she’d thought herself the veriest of fools. The truth was she had bee
n, but not for the reason she’d suspected.

  “I guess I have, Jeremiah, but I find myself wanting more than a pound,” she whispered as she moved to blanket his body with her own, grabbing his face in her hands and forcing him to meet her gaze.

  She almost snorted. She’d never be able to make Jeremiah Copeland do anything other than what he wanted.

  “How much?” he asked.

  His intensity brought chills to her skin, but he didn’t move to hold her closer. He simply stared at her.

  “I want it all.”

  His cold gray eyes were heated now. “You should make sure you know what all of me entails.”

  “Toby told me, Jeremiah, and I have to wonder why you never did.” Daly wanted to hold her breath, afraid of his response, dreading it like a coiled snake.

  “Maybe you should have trusted me, Daly.”

  It was worse than she thought, then. Indeed the pain was brutal, but no more so than what she’d inflicted on him. “I knew what I saw, Jeremiah. Had to believe what my eyes told me. You were never the best communicator, and when I asked, you told me you wouldn’t leave whatever you were doing alone. I thought—”

  Her eyes closed and his hands rose to hold her face. “You thought what?”

  “I thought I wasn’t enough to hold you. That loving me wasn’t enough,” she said in a low voice.

  He turned them so suddenly she squeaked. He sat up and she straddled his lap. The blankets were tangled between them, but the heat of his cock was a brand against her pussy.

  “You were my everything, Daly. Nothing came before you. Every step I’ve taken since I kissed you the first time was for you. Every breath I’ve taken was for you. Every action was to ensure your safety.” His voice was raw, as if he held in a yell, and his hand tightened and released on her back.

  “That’s what Toby said,” she said quietly.

  “Fuck what Toby told you three years later, Daly. Why didn’t you trust me? Trust what I had shown you?”

  There was his anger. It sank its talons deep into her heart, trying to rip the organ from her chest. She couldn’t answer him because she still didn’t have a grasp on the why of it all. She hadn’t trusted him, and the truth of it continued to hurt them both.